


but i've got you to keep me warm

by andthreequarts



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 15:43:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23272501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andthreequarts/pseuds/andthreequarts
Summary: Jonny has errands to run. Patrick tags along.
Relationships: Patrick Kane/Jonathan Toews
Comments: 4
Kudos: 131





	but i've got you to keep me warm

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Lego House by Ed Sheeran.

Patrick’s gloomy. The rain that had been pouring all week has finally stopped, but Chicago’s still shrouded in dense fog. He’s been waking up in darkness and it takes just that much longer to shake off sleep: his limbs a bit heavier, his head a little spacier.

It’s an off day—no practice, no video review—and he’s restless. He wants to dislodge this drowsy feeling that still clings to his eyelids.

Jonny’s running errands today, so he’s tagging along. 

Patrick doesn’t have errands. The Bowmans keep a full fridge of groceries and a full pantry of snacks for the kids. There’s almost always a warm dinner waiting on nights that he’s home and Suzanne has yet to let him do a load of his own laundry. Patrick would feel bad, but he’s an ace babysitter and the kids love taking their energy out on him, so he figures it evens out in the end.

Anyway, errands are novel. He’s been to the corner store a couple times to grab snacks and he knows some good take-out places in the area. Hit him up if you’re looking for a bar that’s lenient on the carding policy. But the agenda Jonny lists off—dry cleaning, hardware store, groceries—is foreign to him in this city.

—

“How can you not have been to the dry cleaners yet?” Jonny asks incredulously. “What are you doing with your game day suits?” 

Patrick shrugs. “Dude we wear those for like thirty minutes a night, tops. You walk from your car into the arena. You walk from the arena to the car. They’re like jeans, you don’t need to wash every time.”

“Yeah, Kaner, but it’s been _ months_.” 

“Suzanne takes care of it. She probably just drops them off at the same time as Stan’s suits.” Patrick hesitates, maybe feels a little guilty. “How much does dry cleaning cost?”

Jonny’s already in motion, unbuckling his seatbelt and reaching into Patrick’s space to dig through the glovebox, but he pauses. Looks up.

“It’s like ten, fifteen dollars. Your weekly food intake costs more. Your _ daily _ food intake probably costs more.” He locates the receipt he’s looking for and leans back, snapping the hanging door closed. Patrick smirks at him, feeling more centered.

“I’m a growing boy.”

Jonny snorts, opens his car door. “You _ wish _ you were still growing.”

Patrick follows him into the shop. It smells weird inside and it’s cramped. It’s empty of people, but the counter is pushed up close to the entrance and there are countless garment bags hanging from the rails upon rails that line the room behind it.

Jonny hands over his receipt while Patrick is gawking at the number of fur coats in the corner.

“Is this like a specialty dry cleaners? What’s up with all the weird shit?” Yeah, there’s suits and jackets and sweaters all in plain sight, but there’s also two full-on ball gowns hung up right alongside them. There’s a lace and feathers hat as well, one of the huge ones that posh people wear to horse races. And behind the counter, a tidily folded but towering stack of silk scarves is waiting to be taken back. The patterns vary from neutral stripes to cheetah print to psychedelic paisley. “And who needs that many scarves?”

Jonny looks around, bemused. “I don’t usually pay that much attention,” he says. Patrick rolls his eyes. Eye on the prize, no time for anything else, that’s Jonny. Of course, Jonny also manages to gather himself enough for a chirp. “I think you’d look good in that hat, though. Better than your toques at least.”

“Fuck you, Toews,” Patrick returns rudely. “I’d look better than you.”

There are people who wear these things every day. Silk and lace and fancy designer shirts, ball gowns and opera gloves, waistcoats that look much much fancier than anything Patrick’s ever owned. He already feels ridiculous in his game day suits, like he’s dressing up for something that’s not real. He’s a hockey player. He’s a teenager.

Jonny’s suits are here. Patrick shuffles to the side as someone comes in behind them with a down comforter.

“So have you gotten anything tailored yet?” Patrick asks as they walk out.

Jonny squints at him. “You’re making fun of my ass again, aren’t you?”

—

At the hardware store, they stare at the multitude of cabinet handles on display. The sign above reads “Drawer Pulls” in large, bright font.

“One of the kitchen drawer handles snapped off,” Jonny had explained. “Seabs said to just buy a new one, it’s easy to replace.”

Patrick wishes him luck. He doesn’t even have pictures. It’s going to end up horribly mismatched, if they even manage to get it installed.

“Was it, like, an important drawer?”

“Most of our plates are in there,” Jonny replies faintly.

“It’s metal, right? Not too shiny?”

Jonny digs his phone out and starts flipping through old images, determined. “I think they might be in the background of one of these.”

Patrick wanders. He for sure doesn’t have any random pictures of Jonny’s kitchen saved to _ his _ phone. There’s a bunch of fake sinks nearby. Some saws in the next row over. What if he bought a circular saw? What if he could cut his own hockey sticks? _ What if he could sharpen his own blades? _ Patrick turns to share his genius, but Jonny is talking to an employee in a vest, gesturing at the wall of handles and at his phone.

The gardening section is across the aisle. There’s a bunch of cacti and some vines with yellow-splotched leaves. Maybe Patrick should get a plant. So what if he doesn’t cook or clean or do laundry? He’s responsible. He can remember to water a plant a few times a week. How much sunlight do plants need? Chicago is not sunny right now.

His mom had kept houseplants back home and Buffalo is even less sunny than Chicago. In fact, Buffalo is currently buried under several feet of snow. Patrick never thought he would miss the Buffalo winters: snow blown in quick on lake winds, all bitter cold and dry air. Chicago snowfall is different, quieter, less violent. Most people would probably prefer it.

But when it snows in Chicago, he shovels the driveway alone, without the silent company of his dad. The Bowman kids are too young for snowball fights, much less the epic and extensive campaigns that the Kane brood engages in. He misses his mom’s hot cider and the cookies that Mrs. Abrams always made, how the Watsons always inexplicably had more snow piled up on their doorstep than all the other neighbors.

“There you are!” Jonny says, rousing Patrick from his thoughts. “Are you getting a plant? Do you know how to take care of a plant?”

“No!” Patrick protests. “And yes, you asshole, it’s not that hard to water it every few days.”

Jonny looks skeptical, but he also looks like he’s finally chosen some drawer grips, so Patrick pushes him towards the registers.

“My roommate at Shattuck killed, like, five plants before he gave up. I don’t think it’s that simple.”

“I’m not getting a plant, would you calm down.” Patrick could totally keep a plant alive. And if at first he didn’t succeed, he’d certainly learn how to before killing _ five in a row_, Jesus Christ.

“Hey, no, maybe it’ll teach you some accountability. Maybe you’ll give the puck up less.”

Of course. Jonny’s thinking about hockey.

“Dude, that’s what I have you for. I’ll be open at the blue line, once you’ve figured out all that backchecking and board battle nonsense.”

That gets him an exasperated look, but Patrick can tell there’s no actual annoyance. He’ll make fun of Jonny’s dead shark eyes all day, but the key is to look at the lines by his mouth. Jonny can communicate a lot with the slightest of frowns, the smallest upturn at the corners of his lips.

They head for the automated self-checkout. Patrick prefers talking to people, actual human interaction, but then again he’d feel a little embarrassed too if he were attempting to purchase five different drawer handles. They’re all different sizes, though mostly the same color. He could probably eliminate a few of them for Jonny right off the bat, but there’s no point when they’re almost definitely going to have to come back anyway.

—

Jonny bypasses the carts and picks up a basket, heading for the cereal. The Bowmans have cabinets full of sugary children’s brands. Last night, Patrick snuck some Lucky Charms, slurped down the sugar and marshmallow saturated milk feeling decadent. Jonny, on the other hand, is inspecting a box of something that looks painfully adult and boring.

“At least get the Cheerios, man. Live a little,” Patrick interjects. Oh, now there’s a bitch-face.

“I think my heart is plenty healthy,” Jonny snipes.

“Try the Special K, did you know the K stands for—”

“The K stands for Kellogg’s.”

Peanut butter, whole milk, two cartons of eggs. Jonny prefers _ green _ apples, for some reason.

“I like the sourness,” he protests at Patrick’s skepticism.

“Isn’t acid bad for your teeth or something? Don’t you want to keep them a few more years?”

Jonny’s shaking his head, but he’s smiling too. There’s a girl looking at them from near the onions, though Patrick doesn’t think she knows who they are. Jonny has yet to be identified out in the wild. Patrick’s hair is more recognizable, but both times it’s been a pretty stereotypical-looking old-school hockey fan. They always seem surprised at Patrick’s height, but they also sound like they’re sincere in their compliments. Like they believe in him.

At checkout, Patrick sneaks a Snickers onto the conveyor belt while Jonny’s looking over the magazines.

“If you wanted me to buy you chocolate, you just had to say so, honey.” Valentine’s Day isn’t exactly soon, but the store already has teddy bears and pink-wrapped sweets out on display. Patrick grabs a heart-shaped box, flutters his eyelashes.

Jonny doesn’t object, hasn’t all day for some reason. His eyebrows are direly trying to communicate _ not in our meal plan_, but he pays for it without complaint; picks the box up, shoves it gently in Patrick’s face. Patrick catches it before it falls.

As they’re dumping the bags in the backseat, Jonny checks his phone. “It’s still early,” he says, “let’s get coffee.”

—

Jonny always orders his coffee black and always adds a shit-ton of fake sugar. Patrick opts for a cinnamon latte, eyeing the muffins longingly. Jonny hadn’t said anything, but he was already pushing it with the chocolate; better to pick his battles.

They settle in the window; the rest of the room is pretty dark. Everything outside looks grey and muted, the dim light valiantly trying to penetrate further into the shop. But it’s warm and just crowded enough for Patrick’s tastes: not quite bustling, a healthy hum of voices.

“So am I your valentine?” Patrick teases.

Jonny shrugs. “If you want to be.” He’s looking outside, seemingly unconcerned, but he’s paying attention. His cheeks are pink.

Patrick is thrown by his relative nonchalance. “What, you don’t have grand plans to woo some girl?”

“When would I have time to meet a girl? When am I ever going to have time to meet a girl?”

“Other players manage fine,” Patrick offers.

“Yeah, but they’re not…” Jonny trails off. Patrick fiddles with a napkin, imagines what he might say. _ Yeah, but they’re not the face of a franchise. Yeah, but they’re not trying to bring back hockey to a city that is jaded and bruised on hockey promises. Yeah, but they don’t have my dumb face and my dumb hockey butt and my dumb smile and_—

“They’re not me,” Jonny finishes lamely, looking frustrated at his own ineloquence.

“Duh.”

“I’m serious about the time. All I do is practice and work out and sleep and I’m always tired and I’m always hungry and…” he gestures fruitlessly. “This is it. I’ve been working towards this since I was a kid.” He pauses, breathes in. “I don’t want to let it slip away.”

_ Yeah, _ Patrick thinks. _ Yeah, but they’re not us. _ Patrick had never met anyone else who was as intense, as hungry, as wrapped up in hockey as he was until he met Jonny. Sure, basically everyone he knows is a little crazy about it. But Jonny thinks about it _ all the time_, like he hollowed out the parts of himself that used to hold a personality and a sense of humor and common sense, pushed them all to one side and filled the space in with ice and blades and sweat and blood.

Patrick is more subtle about it, but he didn’t get to where he is by not caring about hockey more than every other fucking thing in his life. Yeah, he’s better at making friends or whatever than Jonny, but that shit’s easy for him. It doesn’t take up space. Sometimes, it feels like there’s no space for anything but this moment, this play, the puck on his tape, the ice sprawling open in front of him. All he has room for, really, is hockey.

They let the topic sit in the air. They let the topic die off. Jonny tells him about playing pond hockey back home in Winnipeg and about the buzz of a college coffee shop during finals week. When he’s relaxed, he moves around a lot more: shifting his weight, leaning forward to punch Patrick in the arm, ducking his head to look at him right on.

Patrick tells him about a prank he pulled off on Gags on their first road trip, Erica’s latest boy problems, the way he’s going to utterly demolish everyone at Mario Kart this weekend.

Jonny wants to talk about the power play, but Patrick shuts him down on that.

—

Soon, they’ll head back to Jonny’s place (well, Seabs’s place). Jonny will pull the still-warm clothes from the dryer and immediately wrinkle them in a pile on his floor, instead of folding them. Patrick’s going to steal his grey hoodie. He’s going to laugh when Jonny finds that the drawer handle he bought is the wrong shade entirely and that Seabs doesn’t own a screwdriver and that they could have just looked at the stock online. He’s going to go home with chocolate in a heart-shaped box, hide it away in his cheat day stash next to the Doritos and gummy worms, fall asleep with “_If you want to be_” echoing in his head.

Tomorrow, they have a game. Tomorrow, they’ll go to a near-empty arena and play until the blood in their veins pounds like it’s going to come bursting out onto the ice, until the ringing in their ears is so loud Patrick could almost imagine that they’re cheers, until Patrick’s gasping for air and half-convinced that there’s none to be had and he’s grinning around his mouthguard and he’s screaming as the puck goes in and he’s flying and flying and flying.

Tonight, Jonny’s going to drive him home through the fog.


End file.
